3. Our Two Pseudo Identities
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To understand this single statement, we need to understand a few basic truths about ourselves: we carry two identities in us always. One, the identity which we project to the outer world, how we want the world to know us, how we want to present ourselves to the world, how we want the world to remember us.
We call this word ahankar. Second is the identity which we believe we are, inside our heart. This is what we call mamakar. So we have two identities - the identity which we project to the outer world and the identity which we believe we are inside ourselves - the ahankar and the mamakar.
Our entire life is nothing but a fight between the ahankar and the mamakar. There is a constant struggle between the identity which we want to project to the outer world and the identity which we believe we are inside us.
When we think that the identity which we want to project to the outer world is reality, we become materialistic. We then spend our whole lives in trying to fulfill that identity, to make that identity into reality, to make that personality into reality. In our day-to-day life, we can see the kinds of people who want to make the outer world identity into reality.
The second group of people who start believing that the identity which they believe inside them is real, only become a kind of a religion. They become yogis, constantly chiseling themselves, constantly trying to develop themselves.
Understand: the identity which you project to the outer world will always be much more than what you are. It will always be something more than what you are. You will always be projecting something more than what is. And the identity which you believe as yourself in the inner world will always be lower than what you are.
You will always be continuously condemning, criticizing and judging yourself. It will always be much lower than what you are.
The group which believes in the identity which it projects to the outer world, the ahankar, will become materialistic. The other group that believes in mamakar, the identity which it believes as itself, becomes a kind of religious group like yogis - continuously chiseling themselves, continuously working on themselves, continuously trying to develop themselves.
Very few people realize the truth that neither the identity which you project to the outer world is reality, nor the identity which you believe within as yourself is reality. People who realize that both are not reality, that both have no base, only they experience true liberation. Only they realize their true blissful state which is beyond both ahankar and mamakar. We call them Paramahamsas.